1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to N:1 redundancy of a voice processing unit in a media gateway system including a circuit switch unit and a packet switch unit, and more particularly, to an apparatus for redundancy of a voice processing unit which can reduce a redundancy switch time of the voice processing unit by simplifying a software processing procedure for connection information update or time-division multiplexing switch connection reset during the redundancy switch process, and a method thereof.
2. Related Art
In general, a voice processing unit (VPU) for transforming voice signals into packet data or vice versa is indispensably installed in a media gateway system having a circuit switch part and a packet switch part. However, if a VPU should happen to become disabled, such as during function failure or during removal of a board, the media gateway system needs to be able to continue to receive, switch, convert and send voice and/or packet data from a source to a destination. In media gateway systems, a redundant or a protection VPU can serve for another VPU that is inoperable. However, this often requires an enormous amount of software in the TDM switch and in the packet switch to send and receive data from the redundant VPU instead of from the disabled VPU. In the redundancy state, when the active VPU is switched to the protection VPU, connection information update or TDM switch connection reset of circuit line interface cards is performed by software, which increases a switch time.
Therefore, what is needed is a novel media gateway system and a method of processing signals that can more efficiently and effectively deal with a situation where a redundant VPU must be used in place of the original or active VPU in such a way that enormous resources in the TDM switch and the packet switch are not tied up.